CBS Was Warned on 'Kid Nation,' Documents Show

By EDWARD WYATT

Published: August 22, 2007

The producers of a CBS reality show featuring 40 children living on their own in the New Mexico desert were warned by the state attorney general's office while the show was being taped last spring that they might be violating the state's child-labor laws, according to interviews with state officials and documents obtained Tuesday under the state's open records act.

The show, ''Kid Nation,'' which is scheduled to premiere on CBS on Sept. 19, is a reality show whose premise is to take 40 children, ages 8 to 15, and place them in a ''ghost town'' in New Mexico to see if they can build a working society without the help of adults.

But after the production ended in mid-May, the parent of one child in the production complained to state officials that the children's treatment bordered on abuse. Four children received medical treatment for accidentally drinking bleach, one child was burned on her face with hot grease while cooking in an unsupervised kitchen, and most of the children were required to work 14 hours or longer per day. They received a payment of $5,000 for their participation.

In interviews last week, CBS contended the children were not employees because they were not performing specific work for specific wages. A lawyer for CBS, Jonathan Anschell, said the network had received no indication that it was violating the law.

But on May 1, two weeks after a state labor inspector was turned away from the site, Andrea R. Buzzard, a New Mexico assistant attorney general, warned in a letter to lawyers for the production that the state did not agree with the network's interpretation of state labor law.

''We are not certain that those laws are limited to traditional 'employment' relationships,'' Ms. Buzzard wrote, citing part of the state child-labor statutes that say that a child's frequent presence at a work site ''shall be prima facie evidence that such child is unlawfully engaged in labor.''

New Mexico frequently issues exemptions to its child-labor statutes to Boy Scout camps, Boys and Girls Clubs and similar groups to allow minor members of those groups to participate what would otherwise be considered work, Carlos Castaneda, a spokesman for the state labor department, now known as the Department of Workforce Solutions, said Tuesday.

Mr. Castaneda said the producers of ''Kid Nation'' should have followed a special permit process. ''We have requests for these permits every summer, to waive the child labor laws and minimum wage rights for camps,'' he said. ''We were not trying to put obstacles in front of the production. We wanted to provide for the safety of children.''

CBS officials had used the ''camp'' designation to characterize the reality show in discussions with parents, Ghen Maynard, the executive vice president in charge of CBS's reality programming division, said last week. CBS spokesmen did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment on the attorney general's letters.

Mr. Castaneda said that CBS and Good TV Inc., the production company behind the show, neither applied for nor were issued such an exemption during the six weeks they spent working on the show. The program took place on the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, eight miles south of Santa Fe.

An official with the New Mexico state department that oversees group homes for children said last week that the production appeared to violate state laws requiring residential units like the one housing the show's participants to be licensed.

When a state labor inspector, Abe Tapia, visited the ranch on April 13, to see if the production had work permits for the children, he was told to wait in a production crew dining area for a producer. After waiting for about an hour, Mr. Tapia was told that the show's executive producer, Tom Forman, would not be available that day.

Mr. Tapia returned to the site the following day and on April 16, but was stopped at the front gate and not allowed onto the property.

The visits were prompted by an anonymous phone call reporting on the activity involving children on the ranch, Mr. Castaneda said. After Mr. Tapia's visit, a New Mexico lawyer representing CBS and Good TV wrote to the state attorney general's office explaining the production, Mr. Anschell said last week.

''No one from that office, despite a detailed description of what we were doing, ever raised an issue whether licensing was required,'' Mr. Anschell said.

But the letter from the attorney general's office indicates otherwise. In addition to pointing out that the definition of work in the state's labor laws appeared to be broader than CBS was saying, Ms. Buzzard, the assistant attorney general, requested a copy of the network's agreements with the child actors.

After receiving the agreement, the attorney general's office again wrote to the production's representatives, on May 24. But by that time, the CBS show had packed up and left the state, and the state officials said the applicability of the state law was moot. But they pointed out that a new state law would soon go into effect specifically limiting the amount of time that children can work each day on television productions.